Our Earth is a home of thousands of volcanoes, some are active and some are inactive. Among those, the most important volcano of human history is “Laki Volcano”. It is a volcanic fissure in the south of Iceland, not far from the canyon of Eldgjá and the small village of Kirkjubæjarklaustur. It lies between the glaciers of Mýrdalsjökull and Vatnajökull, in an area of fissures that run in a southwest to northeast direction. It is famous for its violent eruption in 1783-1784 that poured an estimate of 42 billion tons of molten lava across Iceland over an area of 25 km. I am going to investigate the evidence to prove how this volcano affected the entire world in terms of human life, atmospheric and land damage. In addition to this, I would like to further investigate the methods to prevent these types of hazards in the future.
1783 ERUPTION
On the 3rd of June, there was an enormous volcano eruption. A 30 km crack was formed and it was called the Laki fissure. There were 130 bubbling craters formed due to this fissure. Molten lava came flowing out of this fissure and it continued to flow for eight months. In the history of Earth, the Lake volcano has been said to be one of the largest eruption in 500 years. About 40 billion tons of molten rock came flowing out which was enough to cover a city which was the size of Chicago. Usually when lava flows, it cools and solidifies. However, the lava from Laki had travelled 100 km. This was due to the “underground system” or the movement. “Commencing on 8 June 1783, and lasting until the following February, during its eight months of activity Laki produced 9.9x 10~3g of acid gases (mostly H2SO4). Indeed, about 60% of the acid gases were discharged from the fissure in five concentrated episodes between 8 June and 8 July, 1783.” (Brayshay, M. and John Grattan, Environmental and social responses in Europe to the 1783 eruption of the Laki fissure volcano in Iceland: a consideration of contemporary documentary evidence, p.174)
HOW THE ERUPTION AFFECTED THE WORLD:
CONSEQUENCES IN ICELAND
One major consequence was that the lava would spread over 60 km before it started re-surfacing. It also destroyed 20 villages as it spread. Another major consequence of the volcano that affected the people to a great extent was that crops and soil fertility got damaged because of the toxic gases that came out from the volcano—more than half of the total Icelandic livestock died. The eruption released 8 Mt of fluorine, this fluorine settled into grasses and the grazing livestock were afflicted by fluorinosis. Sixty percent of all grazing livestock died due to the effects of the Laki eruptions. Sulfur dioxide released by the lava flow stayed close to the ground (within 5 km) in Iceland, creating acid rains that were strong enough to burn holes in leaves, kill trees and shrubs and irritate skin. The eruption had a great effect on 20% (approximately 10,000 people) of the population of Iceland. This is due to the fact that people faced starvation and diseases. It is no surprise that this event led to what was called “The Haze Famine” locally.
CONSEQUENCES GLOBALLY
In Europe, the heat given out from the volcano had caused major changes in the weather conditions. There was a rise in temperature along with heavy rainfall which caused a snowmelt hence leading to flooding (European floods during the winter 1783-1784: scenarios of an extreme event during the ‘Little Ice Age’, p.168). As mentioned by Alyson Lanciki et al. in their article, the Laki eruption had caused climatic changes in the Northern Hemisphere due to surface cooling. Since the volcanic material had reached the stratosphere, it was bound to cause major climatic changes. The total amount of sulfur dioxide released in the eruption was 122 Mt, out of which 95 Mt made it to the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. This sulfur dispersed into the upper and lower stratosphere entered the jet stream and circulated around the entire northern hemisphere. The consequence of this is apparent on a global scale as well—the 95 Mt of sulfuric dioxide reacted with atmospheric water to form 200 Mt of sulfuric acid aerosols. Around 90% of this sulfuric acid was gotten rid of through acid rain and fog however 10% still remained for more than a year. It is possible that this is the reason why northern hemisphere temperatures were 1.3ºC below normal for 2-3 years after the eruption.
EFFECT ON CLIMATE
Laki volcano causes major environmental disaster. The volcano releases 120 million sulfur gas to the atmosphere. Those sulfur gets particles reacted with vapor in the atmosphere to form sulfuric acid, aerosol, which was spread over more than half of the Northern Hemisphere and many parts of the world. Due to this, the aerosols blocked the heat coming from the sun, causing global temperature depleted and as a result, all the Europe was affected by extreme cold. Even the people in the United States faced one of the coldest winter in the past 500 years.
EFFECT ON LAND AND PEOPLE
Quoted from Oregon State University, volcanoes actually are not always a bad thing. As desperate as it sounds, the lava from the volcanoes will yield to very rich soils that would be useful for farming.
Obviously, the aftermath of volcanoes is leaning towards the negative result. People lose their homes as a result of erupted volcanoes. Even if the houses do not collapse, the ash that got into the building are very extreme to the point that it is impossible to breathe in the house. Back in 1815, there was an explosive eruption that happened in Indonesia, Tambora volcano to be precise. This deadly eruption killed 10,000 people up front and an additional 80,000 people died due to crop loss and famine. As if it was not enough, this subsequent caldera collapse created 9.5 cubic miles of ash that obviously not only affected the people, but the village in the general as mentioned in the article, “How do volcanoes affect people?”.
Some volcanoes are known to produce pyroclastic flows. Pyroclastic flows are mixtures of hot gas and ash. They are also very quick in terms of travelling from the slopes of volcanoes and down. It is very recommended that execution out of the area has to be done quicker than it usually is recommended for other volcanoes that do not contain pyroclastic flows.
Some other gasses that is released from the volcanoes could cause few problems too. The three most common gasses are sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen. The other common gasses, that could also danger the people and the air around it, are carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, and hydrogen fluoride. These gasses could be dangerous when they are very concentrated for people to breathe because they are diluted by air. An example that has happened in the past was the continuous eruption in Kilauea, Hawaii. The long-term exposure to these volcanic fumes created a big problem because it aggravated existing respiratory problems even for healthy people. According to the U.S. Geological Survey General Interest Publication by Christina Heliker, in the long run, these gases could “limit visibility, especially on the leeward side of the island where they become trapped by atmospheric conditions.”
PREVENTING VOLCANO
In the article written by Jamie Seidel, she talked about multiple volcanoes that had happen in the past including the volcanoes in Indonesia. She also talked about the current project that NASA is trying to do in order to stop Yellowstone to erupt. One obvious answer to this, she said, is to find a way to cool the magma down. As a person who was a part of NASA, Seidel said “Supervolcanoes only spill over when the molten rock is hot enough to become highly fluid. In a slightly cooler state, it gets thicker. Stickier. It’s not going anywhere fast.” With this vision in mind, they said that one way to do this is to let the steam off by drilling the volcano. This, of course, will create some high risk. The risk to this is if they drill it too much then it will trigger the volcano to erupt even sooner than when it is supposed to be, as what they called it “explosive depressurization”. This idea of letting the steam off is also supported by Sarah Young, a writer from Independent UK. She mentioned about a write-up of the plan that was shared by BBC, about preventing the eruption by “siphoning heat from caldera and converting the geothermal energy into electricity.” This plan has included the process that might be helpful to continue the plan. They said that “water would be pumped through the borehole into the hot rock and then return to the surface at a temperature more than 600 degrees Fahrenheit.” This energy would then be used to drive turbines and generate electric power (Young). Once the water is cooled, it could be pumped back underground to subtract more heat.